


There Are Stanzas Still Unfurled, Verses Still Unsold

by Thassalia



Category: Austin & Murry-O'Keefe Families - Madeleine L'Engle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-20
Updated: 2007-12-20
Packaged: 2018-01-25 07:45:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1639637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thassalia/pseuds/Thassalia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is what it is to grow up into someone beyond your expectations. Smaller and bigger both, and always with choices.</p>
            </blockquote>





	There Are Stanzas Still Unfurled, Verses Still Unsold

**Author's Note:**

> Huge thanks to Kath, and Kernezelda and iamsab, even if I changed my mind, for infinite help and patience. Faults with this story are entirely mine.
> 
> Written for erinpoetchica

 

 

No one makes a living as a poet.  A life maybe, but not a living.

The scene outside Vicky's office was typically picturesque for Winston College--white snow on bare ground, trees like silhouettes, leafless and stark.

Infinitely poetic.

Also, depressing.

Even new snowfall couldn't hide the fact that underneath was a cakey layer of dirt and snow and ice that had been there for months.  Vicky was tired of the cold, of the same endless expanse of deceptive white stretching out to the other academic buildings, down the hill to the dorms.

John Esposito knocked on the door to her tiny office. She'd heard the click of his cowboy boots in the hallway, wasn't surprised by the knock.

"You wanna get some coffee?" he asked, voice a flattish drawl.

John wore his hair longish, had a thick black mustache and warm eyes. He taught philosophy and comparative religion to freshman. He had a daughter and an ex-wife somewhere warm. He asked her out for a drink periodically, and Vicky always said no, but she liked sitting by him in the dining hall, sipping thin coffee and hearing about his freshman disasters. He took them all to such heart, seeing the students with such affection that she always felt warmer afterwards. It banished some of the day's chill.

It was hard to make friends up here, and John had been both kind and persistent. She hated to disappoint him.

"Sorry." Vicky waved to the stack of papers on her desk. "Plato vs. Buddha," she added, sighing. "And the reading is tonight."

He smiled at her and puts his hand to his head like he was tipping his hat. "Good luck with all that. May Buddha be with you."

*

She didn't listen to the message on her machine at home until she was nearly dressed, finally responding to the blinking lights as she put on her shoes. Three students had knocked on the door since she started getting dressed, one of those days where a faculty apartment was more curse than blessing. But that's not why she's avoided the message.

Adam's voice came out a little garbled and she shoved her foot into the boot hard enough to wrench her ankle.

"You can keep ignoring me," he sounded angry and self-righteous, "but I'm going to keep calling. Eventually, you'll talk to me."

Vicky wanted to erase the message, but he's not wrong and it didn't hurt to have the reminder there. She will have to talk to him eventually, but not today. Or tomorrow. It was cowardly, but she'd never claimed any sort of great courage. If she called him now, she'd want....well, she'd want him, his presence and comfort. There were things she needed to do alone. Tonight was one of those things.

The mirror aged her. She was willing to look a little like a minor American poet, flowy skirts and scarves, and if it was a surprise that she was no longer girlish, at least she still recognized herself. She looked like species: professorus collegus, class: New Englandicanas, as Adam would say, had said on her first day teaching at Winston. That would have to do. It was too cold outside for much finery.

The phone rang again and she ignored it, digging about on her wooden desk until she found her notes and the small chapbook published by the university. She tucked the poems she thought she'd read in between the thick pages.

Maybe she'd read something new. Most likely, the audience will be students, maybe a few of the older residents of the town out for an inexpensive night of free wine and decent cheese and pre-approved words. Her work wasn't shocking, nor transformative, but she felt solid in her efforts. That the audience's time would not be wasted.

"Vicky, please remember to bring the photo albums when you come next week." Suzy sounded busy and precise on the answering machine, her nature and her manner, the bright, busy doctor. "The girls want to see us when we were younger." She laughed a little, still so beautiful, and not without humor. "They don't actually believe we were young."

Vicky barely remembered being young, despite having made a modest career of writing her youth, but her everyday was 35 years old, and not yet divorced, perhaps not ever divorced. They were still working that out. Adam wanted her to reconsider, to remember what they had. She wants him to be the boy she fell in love with. They will both be disappointed if they capitulate.

"It's the risk of marrying your childhood sweetheart," her mother had said, the one wistful piece of advice she'd ever given Vicky; the only hint that life wasn't always going to be perfect once love wrapped around you and pulled you tight. "You both grow, or you part."

Vicky thought they'd been growing. It was only this summer that had brought with it such...distance.

"Anyway," Susie finished, "if you could bring them. Dave'll meet you at the station. I'm on call that night, but the girls will be thrilled to see you. I... it'll be good to see you."

Vicky put on her coat and hat and gloves, zipped herself up, patting the chapbook inside her bag, just to be sure. She hadn't seen her sister since Thanksgiving, even though they're only an hour away by train. But it was hard to look at all that cheerful, bickering familiarity, those beautiful girls and that happy family without feeling like her own sort of failure. Didn't they ever have any doubts?

"It's not failure if it's a choice," she whispered and struggled to believe that.

It was cold outside, frigid and still on a Tuesday night and enough of the students were at dinner or holed up studying that the campus felt strangely empty and hollow. Another 20 minutes and young bodies would spill onto the paths that connect the different buildings to each other, but for now it was just echoes of their chatter and the sound of wind against dry snow.

Greys and darks and shadows greeted her as she walked to the shuttle that would take her into town. She could drive, but the battered car protests heartily in the cold and it was easier to stamp her feet and rub her hands and wait in the tiny wooden shelter than to coax life into the battery of the old Toyota.

There were only a few students in the van, a boy and a girl who sat very close and kept giving each other sly, happy looks. Two girls on their way to the movies. A boy with a watch cap clutching a book of philosophy. They looked vaguely familiar, but none of them were Religion or English majors. She hadn't assigned any of them grades, struggled to help them understand the complexities of Shakespeare or Thomas Beckett, the beauty of Walt Whitman or bell hooks or Mary Oliver. Hadn't lead them through John Donne, whose faith had resided so carefully in both the spirit and the flesh.

"Where you going, Miz Eddington?" The drivers all knew her, particularly the winter drivers.

"Benedick's," she said.

The boy with the hat looked up. "You're going to the poetry reading?" he asked, accusingly, as if she wasn't allowed to go anywhere he might want to go.

"I am."

The boy nodded gravely, disdain clear on his face and the driver pulled the van out of the parking lot, taking the long, shadowy road towards town.

Vicky pulled the chapbook from her bag, opening to the pages that she's marked. She couldn't really see the words in the darkness, didn't much need to. It was enough to know they're there on the page.

*

The bookstore was tidier than usual, folding chairs set up in the back, a tiny table with water and a reading light at the head of the metal procession, cheese bits and napkins and big industrial wine at the other end.

The room was about half full, a good sized crowd for a cold evening in a small town.

Martha Benedick gave her a wide, flurried smile when she saw her.

"Vicky," she sounded delighted in the same way she always did and Vicky hugged her back. "Do you have something new for us?"

Vicky shed her coat and hat, clinging tightly to the bag, shaking her head. "I don't think anything's ready for the public." She'd been ready earlier, emboldened. Now that she was here, looking at the small gathering of people, she wasn't sure she wanted to do more than say the familiar. The new felt too...new.

Normally, she'd look out at the sea of faces, letting the tenor of the evening set the pitch, like those first low notes of a chorale, using the momentum of the audience choose her work. But normally, she had Adam in the audience, a lone, biased face ready to clap for her.

Martha nodded, though, pushing back wild graying hair. "I understand," she chuckled, "muses can't be rushed."

It was an old joke. Neither of them believed in divine inspiration, and Vicky was currently making her peace with the Divine. There was only so much that could be taken away before resentment set in, along with the difficult questions. She'd studied the way the greatest theist of the ages had asked and answered them; which left her with just enough knowledge to seek out her own conclusions. There was never an easy answer in the face of loss, of death. God's will had nothing to do with disasters, with cancer, with endings. That was all in the hands of people.

"If you've still got students interested, I think we can hold the open mike on the first Saturday of next month," Martha was excited, brisk. "The author we booked cancelled. His wife is very ill, and we've already put the deposit down on the chairs and the podium."

"That'd be nice. I still have several who've agreed to read their work. I think they're nervous, but probably less so than I ever was."

She was constantly astonished by the bravery of these children, so far from their homes, so fearless in their choices, their rashness, their passions. She'd finished her own degree in English without a lot of fuss, going home at night to the tiny apartment she'd shared with Adam, carving out time for him as much as for the words.

It wasn't until he'd gotten the job in California, leaving her for long stretches at a time in the apartment in Santa Cruz, that she'd reconsidered the path her life was taking. The religion course had meant to be a way to pass the time. Applying for, being accepted into the Religious Studies doctoral program had been almost as much of a shock for her as it had been for Adam.

She'd never seen herself as someone who could live far away from her family. She'd envisioned a house like the one she'd grown up in, some children and a loving husband, maybe words to shape. It hadn't worked out that way, and the older she got, the fewer regrets she found herself with. She liked these young minds, this open world of thoughts and ideals and people talking about God and gods with such consideration. She thought her grandfather would be proud. The distance still troubled her, but less than it would have years ago.

Martha introduced her as Vicky Austin, something Adam had encouraged. "You started writing as an Austin," he'd said, hand warm on her neck as she listened to his heart in that first apartment. "It makes sense to continue as one."

The boy with the hat was sitting in the second row, legs crossed and a scowl on his face. In the low light, she could tell how handsome he was, sullen and beautiful in a way that reminded her of Zachary.

It was easy then, to read that first poem, the one dedicated to the Zachary she had wanted him to be at 16, full of the disappointment of first loves, that easy, tender bruising.

She ended:

"I go forward,

braver and newer, rawer and paler, a layer of skin left behind.

I shed it, snakelike,

Not needing anymore the parts the held impressions

Of your thoughts and fingers."

The group clapped heartily, all except for the boy, and she smiled for him anyway. She caught sight of John Esposito in the back. He must have snuck in mid-stanza. He raised his hand a little, a wave. She was less alone than she'd feared. Perhaps less alone than she'd hoped.

"This next poem was written for my youngest brother." Her voice was clearer and steadier than she felt, themes shaping themselves as she chose the work. "He's a priest now, but he used to just be this little boy who loved everyone very cheerfully."

"You went to God, expansive.

You couldn't fit just one person into your heart,

Needed a flock to guide

Lost sheep, and those already found, but floundering..."

She should take Rob up on his offer, she thought, as the applause settled into something comfortable. Go see him in his retreat, work with the poor he embraced. It would be good to spend time with the youngest of them.

"This last one is for my mother," she was near the end, surprising herself. She hadn't thought it was ready, that she was ready. "She died this summer of cancer."

*

Martha's hand on her arm was a comfort. "It was beautiful, Vicky, very moving."

The poem wasn't an elegy, and next time she reads it, she won't tell the truth. The poem was her mother in the garden, dirt on her knees and forehead, tugging against weeds, fight with roots, tugged at alternately by children and their needs.

"Thank you." She touched Martha's fingers and found the boy with the hat.

He held a plastic cup of red wine that he was likely not old enough to drink, and shifted uncomfortably.

"I liked the last one," he said to her, still frowning. "About your mom."

Martha patted her arm again, and left to attend to some of the other guests.

Vicky's so surprised that the boy stayed until the end that all she could do was mumble thank you.

He continued to stare at her, face curled like she's an exotic, something odd and rare and not quite pleasant. He reminded her even more strongly of Zachary with that look, that ease in making people uncomfortable, throwing them off balance.

They'd gone to Zachary's funeral three years ago, she and Adam, standing at the gravesite, clutching hands and she hadn't even known what to feel. It'd been so long, and Zachary had kept in touch with postcards, random gifts over the years. She had memories of a troubled boy, but they'd never really evolved into thoughts of him as a man.

When the lawyers read his will, no one had been more surprised than Vicky to find that Zachary'd left much of his wealth to the research wing of Suzy's hospital. It was such an altruistic gesture from Zachary. Thoughtful. So unlike him. Or maybe he'd become someone who left donations to help other people. Vicky had always been afraid to know.

"You remind me of someone," she said impulsively to the boy, and he looked at her, unimpressed. "That first poem..." but she drifted off, embarrassed.

"Oh," the boy said, not sounding displeased, but he walked away when John came up, a glass of cold white wine for her in hand.

"Do you know him?" Vicky asked, and followed the boy with her eyes as he made his way through the stacks.

"Thomas Comer," John said. "Bright. Dour. I think he lost his father in high school."

Vicky's mouth twisted at the adjective, achingly a little for the boy and his loss.

"They have no idea how funny they are," he said, "so distraught by life at 18. They break my heart. Even when they're holding real tragedy, it's hard not to think of them as Hamlet's rallying against the unfairness of their personal universes."

The wine was sharp, a little acidy, and she swallowed it with a grimace. "Did you enjoy the reading?"

"I didn't know your little brother was a priest."

It wasn't an answer, but she found it didn't matter so much now.

"He went to seminary after college," she said.

Robin had known his path since the summer their grandfather died. Vicky had been terribly jealous of his certainty. She was always left out of those sorts of things, always so filled with conflict, doubt, always able to see so many roads ahead while the rest of her family often just saw the one, lit up like a freeway at night.

"Everyone in my family is a something." She tried to make light of it. "Even my husband. Everyone except for me."

And, she thought, my mother, missing her fiercely. The only other person who's identity had been flexible and fluid, so many things to so many people. Happy to be mother, confidant, wife, not needing a broader title.

"You're a something," John said, and gave her a full, warm smile. "You're a poet, right?"

Vicky didn't contest the title, didn't say that poet was just one thing amongst many.

"Wanna go next door, get some coffee?" John looked at her like he wanted to ask for more, but coffee sounded lovely.

"Sure." That tingly rush of a reading done well made her brash. Next door was a quiet little bar. She doubted John intended to get her drunk, but it would be exciting, perhaps, to find out.

*

Thomas Comer sat in one of the booths with a brown coffee cup in front of him, eyes focused on the philosophy book.

Vicky chose a small table not far away from the boy while John fetched Irish coffees, her own form of compromise.

There's whipped cream on the top, and she licked it off, childlike.

"It's so cold out," she said, feeling a little silly, but it's true.

"I grew up in Arizona," John said, "60 degrees is cold to me. This? This is the seventh layer of hell."

"It's just snow," Vicky propped her chin in her hand. "Just cold that will fade. I went to Antarctica once, couldn't stop thinking of the cold. It guided everything."

She'd been very young then, Adam even younger, but that's when it started. When she knew she'd marry him.

"It makes my blood freeze just to think of Antarctica," John said, and asked about her freshman seminar.

They made small talk until they ran out of gossip and students. It was late, although not as late as it seemed. Vicky was sure Adam would call again before she got home. Just the thought of another blinking light made her edgy.

The jukebox had grown louder as the evening progressed and in a bare corner, a couple of people danced. It was old music, sweet, Patsy Cline maybe. Someone that sounded vaguely familiar.

"Wanna dance?" John asked and she said yes before she could stop herself.

He's a little shorter than Adam, with thicker arms and strong hands and he smelled like coffee and a hint of the whiskey and whipped cream. There was another scent there, an old familiar smell like something her grandfather used to wear. They swayed a little, awkwardly. Neither of them much of a dancer, holding to the beat of the music with only a thready sort of grace. When it was over, he leaned down to kiss her on her cheek.

"You seem kind of..." he hesitated as couples continue to sway around them. "Lonely."

He swallowed hard. "Are you?"

It wasn't quite and invitation. Not exactly a question and she didn't know the answer. She missed Adam, but she's missed him for awhile, all his energy focused on his experiments and his graduate students, so much anger that he's held to since she told him she didn't want to have children. Not they way they'd been trying. She has three nieces and two nephews, untold cousins and second cousins; there were plenty of Austins, and she didn't need to mother any more of them.

"How old is your little girl," she asked instead.

"Thirteen," he said, and they went back to the table. The din was getting louder, the crowd a little rowdier.

"How did you know?" she sipped the cooled remains of her Irish coffee. "That you wanted children." Wanting wasn't the issue, exactly.

John shrugged and didn't quite meet her eyes. "You didn't, in those days. I didn't. You just had them, tried to do right by them. I'm still trying."

It's just another thing she's uncertain about, pregnancy and children, and it became too much this summer. Adam's need for babies, everyone's need for them in the face of her mother slowly fading in front of them all. Vicky had hated it, the idea that something else could be taken from her, that she could bring that same sort of sadness to someone she loved. She wanted to nurture, but she couldn't take more disappointment. She'd rather bring kids in from the cold, foster them like they had Maggie. Give them a place to belong.

Wood scraped against wood next to them, Thomas Comer standing next to the table.

"Can I..." he shifted uncomfortably. "Are you going back to Winston tonight? I...uh...I missed the shuttle."

Which meant she did to.

"C'mon," John said, like he'd resigned himself to something. "I'll drive you both."

*

Thomas Comer mumbled a distant thank you when John pulled up to the entrance to the college, waiting in the snow while Vicky got out. If she was lonely, he must be doubly so. But she wasn't prepared to address that, and he didn't exactly ask it of her. There was room for doubt, and she leased it gratefully.

The boy walked with her to her door, silent the whole time, their boots crunching the snow in a syncopated harmony.

"They were good," he said finally. "Your poems. I didn't think they would be. You look like they'd be..." he shrugged. "But they weren't."

She doesn't know what to say to that. "Thank you for walking me home," she said, finally, like she's 15 and on a first date.

Thomas Comer raised his shoulders again and headed across the lawn towards the set of dorms opposite, lean body sylphish against the snow.

When she got inside, stamping the snow off her feet, the light was blinking. She didn't bother to check it, just picked up the phone.

Adam was sleepy, confused when he answered.

"I wrote something new," she said, because she doesn't want to talk about anything real, but she has missed his solid presence by her side when she's run over with feeling, when she was doing something good, something right.

"Read it to me," he said, like there haven't been months and weeks and days of silence and anger.

"Okay." She closes her eyes, looking at the words that have already moved onto the page, but are still held tight within her.

"There's dirt on your knees,

The elbows of your sweater tugged out of shape by too many hands

Today, the weeds need you,

But we're reluctant to let you tend

Other charges..."

 


End file.
